Victims of Jewish Chronicle Falsehoods are Demanding Action from Press Regulators

While the Jewish Chronicle reels from the Elon Perry crisis, past victims of the paper’s bad journalism in the UK have today written to the press complaints body IPSO demanding a formal investigation.  

The group, who have all seen complaints against the Jewish Chronicle upheld or received settlements in libel actions, point out in the letter that IPSO – the Independent Press Standards Organisation – has twice previously rejected their appeals for action while promising it was “very much alive” to problems at the paper, that it was “working proactively” and ready to “move swiftly”.

Despite this, the letter states that IPSO’s own records show that problems of inaccuracy have persisted at the Jewish Chronicle right up to the present crisis. It continues:

“We believe that the Perry case, which is of global and vital significance, should weigh very heavily in IPSO’s considerations. Like almost all of the 40-odd recorded breaches of the IPSO code by the Jewish Chronicle in the past six years, and like those recent cases labelled as resolved by mediation, this scandal is a failure to take due care over accuracy. 

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“IPSO should consider now whether, had it acted effectively and in a timely fashion as we urged both in 2021 and 2023, this might have been averted.”

In the Perry case, the Jewish Chronicle is accused by an array of leading Israeli journalists of publishing fabrications about the Gaza conflict that suit the personal interests of Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu. It is also alleged that the journalist Elon Perry falsified his credentials. 

The Jewish Chronicle has taken down Perry’s articles from its website and expressed regret, while a number of contributors to the paper have distanced themselves from it. 

This is the full letter, which was addressed to the chair of IPSO, Lord Faulks: 

Dear Lord Faulks,

We write to you once again to urge IPSO, as a self-styled upholder of journalistic standards, to carry out a formal Standards Investigation into the Jewish Chronicle in response to the ever-growing catalogue of outrages perpetrated by that publication.

We ask you to do this in the hope that you will wish to prevent others from suffering the abuse and misrepresentation we have experienced at the hands of this publication, as fully documented by IPSO itself or admitted in settlement of libel actions.

As you know, we have written to you twice before with the same request, and on both occasions it was rejected. In September last year, following the second of these appeals, you wrote:

‘We are very much alive to the standards issues at the Jewish Chronicle and the effect editorial failings at the publication have had. When we have identified editorial standards concerns at the Jewish Chronicle – or any other publication we regulate – we move swiftly to address them. An important part of our approach is to work proactively to support editors and journalists to meet our standards. We will continue to act proportionately and flexibly to address editorial standards issues and tailor our approach to the context.’

We note that since that date IPSO has formally found two breaches of the code of conduct by the Jewish Chronicle relating to accuracy, and that it has ‘mediated’ no fewer than four further complaints which have resulted in the Jewish Chronicle taking down or amending material complained of as inaccurate. Once again, in other words, the approach you have adopted has failed.

You cannot be unaware that in recent days a fresh and extremely harmful failure of standards at the paper has been exposed, largely by the work of Israeli journalists. The paper itself has expressed ‘deep regret’ over this and has taken down a substantial volume of reporting.

Though this scandal, involving reports by Elon Perry, may never be the subject of a complaint to IPSO, we urge you not to exploit this as an excuse for further inaction. We believe that the Perry case, which is of global and vital significance, should weigh very heavily in IPSO’s considerations. Like almost all of the 40-odd recorded breaches of the IPSO code by the Jewish Chronicle in the past six years, and like those recent cases labelled as resolved by mediation, this scandal is a failure to take due care over accuracy. IPSO should consider now whether, had it acted effectively and in a timely fashion as we urged both in 2021 and 2023, this might have been averted.

The last time we wrote to you we had to wait two months for a reply. You blamed staffing difficulties. We hope that these have since been resolved and that you will be able to provide a prompt response.

Yours sincerely

Jo Bird

Inayat Bunglawala

John Davies

Tom Gauterin

Jenny Lennox

Omar Mofeed

Kal Ross

Tom Suarez

Marc Wadsworth

Audrey White